Sunday, January 11, 2009

Ayn Rand's philosophy is what got America into economic mess; service of self inspires greed

I was surprised to read a remarkably silly and self-serving piece of commentary by the senior economics editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal claiming that the work of the late author Ayn Rand now has come true in Washington, D.C. -- due to all the bailouts.

During my conservative period as a writer, I was handed a copy of Rand's famous "Atlas Shrugged" by an executive with Martha Ingram's book company.

I started reading it, and found it so foreign to my upbringing as a moral person that I closed it. I wasn't scared of her ideas, I just saw them as feeding the evils of society than battling them, which should be the cause of every American.

And for the past 30 years in America, men and women in America and Nashville have followed her philosophy of self-happiness -- unbridled greed -- over the welfare of all society.

Rand saw no virtue in self-sacrifice. Tell that to all my Marine friends and my Gold Star moms I've known over the past six years. She saw such sacrifice as a commitment of higher virtues to self to lower ones of the general good. Such is the reasoning of an atheist, trying to justify her sad and meaningless existence.

But to see Rand's philosophy of "objectivism" championed by someone of influence in a major mainstream newspaper, and his writing receiving the most hits on the WSJonline website, was most disturbing. Hitler showed us that in time of crisis, people cling to warped thinking that blames someone else. The raising up of Rand by the WSJ's Stephen Moore was most repulsing.

Rand had no affection for charity or mercy. It was survival and supremacy of the fittest, a most unGod-like philosophy.

“My philosophy in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute.”
Atlas Shrugged, appendix

Self-sacrifice was defined as “the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one.”

I don't think such opinions should be banned. But I am glad that I now know that the writer of economics' editorials for The Wall Street Journal believes in such rubbish. Stephen Moore's motivation and passion are only for himself and his advancement -- and not the nation.

He has come upon a moment in history in which his philosophy was refuted by a great majority of Americans at the ballot box -- which should be the greatest expression besides prayer for the rational man Rand's so worshipped but knew so little about. Yet Moore would rather rationalize away his inability to sense the national mood and desire.

America remains a nation under God and dedicated to His virtues of mercy, forgiveness, military service beyond self and compassion. It discourages the consideration of oneself as a higher virtue than others. It instead teaches "yet for the grace of God go I." And I have personally experienced that truth in my rescue from death from leukemia more than two years ago and the restarting of my professional journalism career this week.

We don't believe in God out of superstition. We believe in God because He makes us better people -- so much more advanced than Rand's mind could conceive and even happy when our cancer tells us we should be in deep woe and worry.

Rand's philosophy that worshipped man and his happiness -- even if it meant destruction of the lesser valued society due to unbridled greed -- got this country in its current economic mess.

It will be believers in self-sacrifice, mercy and the general welfare during an economic depression that hold the best hope for America and in this nation's ranks of leadership -- including on The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

And it's that reason why many of us in Nashville are organizing the largest inaugural ball outside of Washington, D.C. to state that essential and saving truth on Jan. 20 and every day after.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

blog fail.